Calling all Earthlings! Take a few minutes to get involved in the GLOBE at Night campaign to preserve dark skies! GLOBE at Night is a citizen-science campaign open to people all over the world to raise awareness of the impact of light pollution by inviting citizen-scientists to measure their night sky brightness and report their observations to a website from a computer or smart phone. Light pollution threatens not only our “right to starlight”, but can affect energy consumption, wildlife and health. Through 2011, people in 115 countries contributed 66,000 measurements, making GLOBE at Night one of the most successful light pollution awareness campaigns to date. Please join us to participate in the 2012 campaign an hour after sunset til about 10pm January 14 through 23, February 12 through 21, March 13 through 22, and April 11 through 20. For information and resources, visit us at http://www.globeatnight.org.

Are you a fan of Citizen Science? Do you enjoy participating in projects that help researchers and possibly the environment?

GLOBE at Night is one such program! By taking naked-eye observations of the night sky in your area, you can help a world-wide effort to track the effects of light pollution.

Here’s all the info you need in order to participate in GLOBE at Night during 2012.

For starters, what is GLOBE at Night?

The GLOBE at Night program is an international citizen-science campaign designed to raise public awareness of the impact of light pollution on our night skies. GLOBE at Night aims to raise awareness by inviting citizen-scientists to measure their night sky brightness and submit their observations to a website from a computer or smart phone.

Light pollution not only threatens our “right to starlight”, but also affects energy consumption, wildlife and health. For the past six years, the GLOBE at Night campaign has been involving people in 115 countries.

You can also use the new web application data submission process. The GLOBE at Night website is easy to use, comprehensive and holds an abundance of background information. The database is usable for comparisons with a variety of other databases, like how light pollution affects the foraging habits of bats.

<<The Ryugyong Hotel (Korean: 류경호텔) is a 105-story skyscraper under construction in Pyongyang, North Korea. Its name ("capital of willows") is also one of the historic names for Pyongyang. The building is also known as the 105 Building, a reference to its number of floors. Construction began in 1987 with planned completion in 1989. However, after several delays, construction was eventually halted in 1992; the fall of the Soviet Union had resulted in widespread economic disruptions in North Korea and shortages of raw materials.

The building stood topped out but without windows or interior fittings for the next sixteen years. Construction resumed in April 2008 under the supervision of the Orascom Group of Egypt, which has invested heavily in the North Korean mobile telephony and construction industries. The company completed exterior work on the building in 2011, and interior work on the building's 360,000 square metres (3,900,000 sq ft) of floor space will continue until 2012 or later. Orascom has stated that the building will contain restaurants, hotel accommodation, apartments, and business facilities.

The building rises to a height of 330 metres (1,080 ft), making it the most prominent feature of Pyongyang's skyline and by far the largest structure in North Korea. Construction of the Ryugyong was intended to be completed in time for the 13th World Festival of Youth and Students in June 1989; had this been achieved, it would have held the title of world's tallest hotel. The unfinished building was not surpassed in height by any new hotel until the 2009 completion of the spire atop the Rose Tower in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The Ryugyong Hotel is currently the world's 40th tallest building (alongside the China World Trade Center Tower III) in terms of total height and has the 4th highest number of floors.

The plan for a large hotel was reportedly a Cold War response to the completion of the world's tallest hotel, the Westin Stamford Hotel in Singapore, in 1986 by the South Korean company SsangYong Group. North Korean leadership envisioned the project as a channel for Western investors to step into the marketplace. A representative for the North Korean government promised relaxed oversight, saying, "The foreign investors can even operate casinos, nightclubs or Japanese lounges if they want to."

The hotel was scheduled to open in June 1989 for the 13th World Festival of Youth and Students, but problems with building methods and materials delayed completion. Had it opened on schedule, it would have surpassed the Westin Stamford Hotel to become the world's tallest hotel, and been ranked the seventh-tallest building in the world.

In 1992, after the building had reached its full architectural height, work was halted due to a lack of funds amid electricity and food shortages in North Korea. Japanese newspapers estimated the cost of construction was US$750 million, consuming 2 percent of North Korea’s GDP. For over a decade, the unfinished building sat vacant and without windows, fixtures, or fittings, appearing as a massive concrete shell. A rusting construction crane at the top, which the BBC called "a reminder of the totalitarian state's thwarted ambition", became a permanent fixture. In the late 1990s, the European Union Chamber of Commerce in Korea inspected the building and concluded that the structure was irreparable. Questions have been raised regarding the quality of the building's concrete and the alignment of its elevator shafts, which some sources say are "crooked".

Even though the Ryugyong dominates the Pyongyang skyline, official information regarding the hotel and its status have proven difficult to obtain. Though mocked-up images of the completed hotel had once appeared on North Korean stamps, the North Korean government denied the building's existence for many years. The government manipulated official photographs in order to remove the structure, and excluded it from printed maps of Pyongyang. The alleged problems associated with the hotel led some media sources to dub it "The Worst Building in the World", "Hotel of Doom" and "Phantom Hotel".

On 1 January 2012, state news agency KCNA released a new propaganda poster, which showed the Ryugyong Hotel as part of the background. It is unclear when the building will open. In 2008, North Korean officials stated that the hotel would be completed by 2012, coinciding with the 100th anniversary of the birth of "Eternal President" Kim Il-sung. According to Orascom, interior work is to be conducted after the completion of exterior work, and the building will not be ready until 2012 or beyond.>>

<<These before and after images from NASA’s Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership satellite show the power outages in the clear skies over Washington, DC and Baltimore that occurred as a result of a rare, fast-moving thunderstorm system on Friday, June 29th. Extensive power outages in Washington, DC and Baltimore are visible in these images. Clouds obscure the lights of Philadelphia and other areas north and east of Baltimore. Of particular interest is the loss of light to the north and west of Washington, DC along the 270 and 66 interstate highways and Maryland route 267.

Known as a “derecho,” the storm combined intense lightning and rain with hurricane-force winds that were upwards of 60 miles per hour (~96.5 kilometers per hour). It killed 22 people and caused some 4.3 million households to lose power for days. Derecho is the Spanish word for straight and the storm raced from west of Chicago across Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C. According to the National Weather Service, the gigantic windstorms of a derecho are as powerful as tornados, but the winds don’t twist, instead driving in a straight line. To be classified as a derecho, the swath of wind damage must extend more than 240 miles and the storms are powered by hot, humid weather.

These images were taken with the day/night band of S-NPP’s Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS). Suomi NPP was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base on October 28th, 2011 and is the result of a partnership between NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Department of Defense.>>